Social media advertising tips for beauty brands from a private business breakfast with Facebook, Aitarget, L’Oréal, and Scentbird

In late June, a private business breakfast for beauty was held by Facebook and Aitarget, with special guests of L’Oréal and Scentbird, in a Moscow jazz club.

We have collected the key insights from this event to share with you here.

If Facebook and Instagram don’t perform, change the product

Creatives are responsible for the success

Popov noted that the more precisely a product hits an actual need of the audience, the easier it is to do marketing for it. At the same time, strong analytics and creatives focused on performance are important.There are no hard rules for creatives, but there are several formats or approaches that perform better than others. “For example, video as a whole works for us,” says Popov. “Unboxing as a separate video format works for us worse than funny videos. Generally, humour for perfume is a bold decision, because perfume is a luxury category. The charisma of the person speaking determines much more than what he says.”

Smartphone rules the future of shopping

The industry is under constant pressure from a lack of user attention and the rising influence of mobile phones. Brands should set up their purchase funnel for mobile and adapt their advertising to this kind of consumption.

This is related to the preferences of Generation Z, a huge group of сonsumers (e.g. in the USA, Generation Z forms almost 28% of the population and is the largest generation group) who watch about 68 videos on social media platforms per day.

To grab the attention of this audience, brands should use their common language in videos.

Formats narrow the distance

Collaborative Ads is Facebook’s new ads format which connects brands and retailers.

Brands want measurable online sales and retailers need quality traffic and high conversions, so Facebook has launched this partner product. Now a brand can share their product catalogue with a retailer and track sales on their website, while Pixel data about the retailer’s audience is kept private.

All in all, this solution increases sales efficiency for both partners.

Personalisation and well-executed targeting reduce conversion cost

The Aitarget Video Tool created personalised videos which tripled reach, reduced cost per 10-second video view by three times, and reduced CPC by 25%.

The audience segmentation for creating personalised messages delivered the results and helped the brand to find consumers of beauty products sold in pharmacies, inform them about the issue of sun protection, and make individual offers.

Aitarget examines key announcements from Day 2 of F8 2019

Responsible innovation

Facebook Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer began the keynote address on Day 2 by addressing some elephants in the room in terms of social media misuse:

“I am as optimistic about the future as I’ve ever been… It’s true that we, and I, have learned a lot of really hard lessons over the last few years, and those lessons have fundamentally changed the way we develop and build new technologies. Made us realise… not just the amazing good that can come from new technology, but the bad, the unintended consequences, the ways in which people may abuse those new technologies.”

Even though the challenge is clear, issues relating to election interference, misinformation, and hate speech are complex and the solutions aren’t simple, admitted Schroepfer. As we all, the CTO would love to get an easy 1-2-3 innovation playbook, but it just doesn’t work that way.

Instead, Facebook is dedicating itself to continuously tackling these problems on a daily basis. Each product team includes a special group dealing with the specific challenges faced by that product. Those building new features work alongside those investigating drawbacks.

Facebook is committed to engaging with experts at each stage of creating new products and features, said Schroepfer. They will work with “a spectrum of organisations on each and every core issue we have”, such as save.org for suicide prevention.

The CTO took the audience through the challenges faced with problematic content, and the steady progress made with increasing use of AI to proactively detect problems (before users report them).

As an example, Schroepfer demonstrated the F8 2019 audience how difficult it was even for humans to distinguish between tempura broccoli and marijuana in an image.

Five years ago Facebook could only detect drug-related content using keywords. The development of computer vision (CV) made it easier to detect violating content in images – the task with which the audience struggled – and now AI could even detected packaged drugs like those pictured in the image above on the right.

Search and destroy

In recent years Facebook has worked hard to develop AI technology that with as little supervision as possible proactively detects content that violates Facebook policies.

While developing tools can be challenging – especially as they’re working against bad actors actively trying to get around defenses – the overall goal can be simply encapsulated, said Schroepfer:

Manohar Paluri of the Facebook AI shared how a digital common language was being created which helps catch harmful content across many languages by utilising advances in natural language processing (NLP).

A new approach to object recognition, Panoptic FPN helps AI-powered systems understand context from photo backgrounds. Nowadays AI can help proactively address problematic content across any medium on social media (text, images, video).

Paluri began his speech by stating that nowadays Facebook “cannot exist without AI” – and closed by spelling out just what AI itself needs to do.

Fairness and inclusivity

While AI is an important tool to help keep Facebook safe, it also brings risks in terms of reflecting and amplifying bias, said Joaquin Quinonero Candela from Facebook’s AI team.

Facebook is building best practices for fairness into every step of product development to ensure AI protects users without discriminating against them.

A new process for inclusive AI has been baked into the development of new features to ensure data sets are representative of people across the spectrum of age, gender presentation, and appearance.

Candela spoke about how fairness is a process, then introduced his colleague Margaret Stewart, VP of Product Design, to address the hard ethical questions in design.

Stewart spoke about the human side of Responsible Innovation, and how the design of social media interfaces can impact society in both good and bad ways.

“Design is not neutral,” she stressed, “It has to be managed with utmost care.”

Facebook uses design to reduce the harm that could be caused by misinformation while erring on the side of freedom of expression. However, not always does it work directly. For instance, when they tried working with third-party fact-checking organisations to flag disputed content, it had the opposite effect, drawing more attention to such material.

With research showing people around the world wanted to decide for themselves what information is credible, Facebook has built new tools to help determine reliability. Every article that appears in user’s News Feeds now has a display button providing context (who posted, how long they’ve been on Facebook, related articles by source and topic, statistics on who’s sharing it). Because of how important this issue is, Facebook has taken the rare step of animating the new display button, even though the animation tends to create visual noise. “That’s our values showing up in design,” said Stewart.

Stewart also shared how Facebook’s process to dealing with profiles when someone dies has changed over the years. Taking into account different cultural aspects of different nations, Facebook is still trying to balance security issues and the wishes of friends and family to remember their loved one. That is why a new Tributes tab separate from the original Timeline has been added, so friends and family can gather and share memories.

Respectful and safe AR/VR

Lade Obamehinti of Facebook’s AR/VR software team talked about how the inclusive AI process is being used by Spark AR engineers to ensure the software delivers quality AR effects for everyone. For instance, it is capable of recognising hands of various skin tones under varied lighting.

Facebook is also working to ensure their technology not only doesn’t exclude people, but brings people together. VR will allow users to interact regardless of physical distance, but to be successful it needs people to feel completely present.

“Before we ship this we also need to make sure we answer some key questions around privacy and security,” said Ronald Mallett, Research Manager for the AR/VR team. “One of the questions is making sure an avatar is authentic.”

Facebook is working on truly lifelike avatars, with gestures, facial expressions, and voice tone that uniquely identify a personality.

AR and VR need to be inclusive and safe, so Facebook has built preventive systems. One such example is a code of conduct for those who both use and build headsets that fosters a respectful culture and interactions. Another example is reactive tools for reporting violations have also been built.

Lindsay Young, Oculus VR product manager, summed up the VR team performance:

“We believe VR is the next frontier of human interaction. So it’s an area we need to be incredibly mindful when building. VR is powerful, but it can also be intimidating… As we bring together people in VR, they should have access to tools that make them feel safe.”

Final thoughts

Overall, F8 2019 had a really positive and personal vibe, showcasing plenty of new tools and features coming that will keep people using its platform safely for connection, entertainment, and business. With its commitment to “listening, learning, and adapting” and “building responsibly” as new VR technologies are introduced, the social network looks well set to discover the new futuristic technological horizons.

Bonus videos from other sessions:

• Spark AR for Shopping (using Spark AR for commerce);
• Spark AR Outlook: Inspiring Creation and Exploration (more context about Spark AR);
• Creating Standout AR Effects for Instagram (useful for influencer marketing);
• Creativity Rules — Mobile First Creative (best practices);
• Spotlight on Stories: Creative Considerations for Effective Stories Ads;
• Transforming Customer Care with Messenger;
• Driving Traffic to Your Automated Messenger Experience;
• Measurement Options for Business Messaging;
• Growing Your Business with the Facebook Family of Apps (marketing tools);
• Tapping into Your Community with Groups: Fireside Chat with Adidas (leveraging for business);
• From Visual Recognition to Reasoning (AI for video recognition);
• Keep the Platform Safe (tackling content that violates policy off Facebook).

Aitarget examines key announcements from Day 1 of F8 2019

Aitarget experts joined developers, creators, and entrepreneurs fr om around the world in San Jose on 30 April and 1 May for F8, Facebook’s annual two-day conference.

More than 5,000 people explored the future of technology via dozens of expert presentations, deep-dive sessions, and product demonstrations showcasing the latest tools for businesses in Facebook family.

Despite the large number of attendees, our experts found F8 2019 had a very welcoming and personal atmosphere. Many onstage speakers shared their own photos and stories about using technology with their loved ones, stressing the idea of intimate connection.

F8 2019 overflowed with innovations, emphasised by the interactive, high-tech conference space, wh ere attendees could grab and try Oculus headsets, Smart Cameras, and more.

In this article, our Aitarget team have handpicked some key highlights from the first day which was packed with announcements across the whole Facebook family.

A new era: the future is private

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg opened his F8 2019 keynote address by sharing “a fundamental shift”: the social network would be building a more privacy-focused platform.

“The basic idea here is that in all of our lives we have our public spaces, like our town squares, and we have our private spaces, like our living rooms,” said Zuckerberg. “In our digital lives we also need both public and private spaces.”

The last fifteen years has seen Facebook built as a digital town square, where users could connect widely across geographic boundaries and do things with a lot of people all at once. Now Facebook would also focus on giving people the freedom and space to be themselves.

“It’s easier to feel like you belong when you’re among smaller communities and your closest friends,” said Zuckerberg when talking about the new focus on the digital living room. “As the world gets bigger and more connected, we need that sense of intimacy more than ever.”

Zuckerberg acknowledged Facebook doesn’t have the best reputation regarding privacy, and declared he’s “committed to doing this well, and starting a new chapter for the products”.

During the keynote, Facebook outlined six key principles that it will apply to everything it is looking to do in the coming years.

• Private interactions: the right for everyone to be able to privately interact without anyone “watching”.
• Encryption: integrating end-to-end encryption throughout the Facebook experience.
• Reduced permanence: making sure what users post today will not come back and haunt them in the future (e.g. content and messages that disappear after time, like Stories).
• Safety: the right for everybody to feel safe when using any of the company’s apps.
• Interoperability: the ability to communicate and use any of the Facebook family of apps to reach their friends across Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram.
• Secure data storage: ensuring that data is secure and cannot be seized by anyone – including governments, and Facebook itself.

A new look for summer

For the first time in five years, Facebook is changing its attire. The new FB5 has a community-focused look some are calling an “aspirational redesign” moving towards what the social network wishes it could be.

FB5 sheds Facebook’s classic blue-and-white branding for a clean white design that’s “simpler, faster, more immersive, and puts your communities at the centre,” announced Fidji Simo, Head of product at Facebook. Updates began rolling out to US app users immediately from the announcement at F8 2019, with a fresh new desktop site for everyone coming later this year.

Source: Facebook press kit

The redesign increases the prominence of both Groups and Marketplace on the freshly tabbed interface. “Everywhere there are friends, there should be Groups,” said Simo. The fast-growing Marketplace will also be adding direct payments and shipping. Sellers can reach more buyers and get paid securely.

With FB5 users will be able to save where they left a News Feed, so they can easily return to what matters most. A dark mode for mobile and desktop will also be available.

Time for a Groups hug

“Groups are at the heart of Facebook’s redesign,” announced Simo. Facebook wants to make it easier for users with shared passions to both connect online and gather together offline.

Groups will become more prominent all across the Facebook experience, from News Feed to wherever users engage with friends, family, and businesses.

• Redesigned Groups tab for easier discoverability. This will allow users to see a personalised feed of activity across all their groups, front and centre; and improved recommendations will let people quickly find groups they may be interested in.
• Easy participation, easy sharing. Facebook is making it easier to get relevant group recommendations throughout its app in places like Marketplace, Today In, the Gaming tab, and Facebook Watch. Users may see more groups content in News Feed, and will be able to share content directly to their groups from News Feed.
• New community-specific features. Recognising that different communities can have different needs, Facebook is introducing new features for various types of groups. New Health Support groups will allow members to anonymously ask questions and share information. Employers have a new template to post vacancies in Job groups, while those looking for roles can message and apply directly through Facebook. Gamers have new chat features, shopping groups – new shipping options, and local communities – new features related to what’s on and local events.

WhatsApp-ening for better business

WhatsApp already led the way among Facebook apps when it comes to privacy, with its encrypted and restricted “share location” option, and its private and impermanent Status sharing experience (which has become even more popular than Instagram Stories).

“Now along with becoming even safer with further privacy upgrades, WhatsApp will be delivering more for business,” announced Ami Vora, VP Product Management at WhatsApp.

“What if we could make sending money as simple as sending a message?” asked Vora. WhatsApp Pay, being tested in India, could be rolled out to other countries in the next few months.

Also in the coming months, WhatsApp users will be able to view product catalogues right within the app when chatting with a business.

Brands will be able to showcase goods within their catalogue. Combined with better payment solutions, the WhatsApp upgrades will allow companies to conduct business online without a website.

Shopping and giving Insta-ly

Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri announced that users will soon be able to shop from creators they love (from public figures and artists to entrepreneurs and publishers) without leaving Instagram. Anyone in the global Instagram community will be able to shop from creators by tapping to see what they’re wearing and buying it on the spot, rather than having to take a screenshot or ask for product details in comments. Testing has begun with a small group of creators, and access will be expanded over time.

Starting from F8 2019, Instagram users in the US can raise money directly on Instagram for nonprofits, using a donation sticker in Stories to mobilise their community. Other users can tap on the sticker to donate. All money raised goes to the nonprofit.

In addition to this, Instagram will improve the camera design and add new features for applying special effects to photos.

Other Day 1 announcements

Along with the points above, the various speakers on Day 1 of F8 2019 made plenty of other revelations. Here’s a brief rundown.

Messenger

• Faster, simpler, safer: rolling out this year, a completely rebuilt MB5 will be 2x faster and 7x smaller than competing apps. End-to-end encryption as default is the goal to ensure data privacy.
• Messenger Desktop: a desktop version for Windows and MacOS allowing group video calls, collaboration, and multi-tasking while chatting. A potential Skype killer?
• Business connections: lead generation templates for Ads Manager, and booking of appointments within Messenger conversations.
• Closer connections: introducing a dedicated space where users can discover Stories and messages with closest friends and family.
• Watch together (testing now for rolling out later this year): discover, seamlessly share, and watch videos together in real time while messaging or on video chat.

Facebook

• Facebook Dating: opt-in to discover potential matches within events, groups, friends of friends, etc. is now expanded from five countries to 19 countries.
• Secret Crush: a new Facebook Dating feature where users can list up to nine friends they’re interested in. Crushes remain secret unless both users list each other as a secret crush.

This announcement created plenty of buzz among F8 2019 attendees.

• Meet New Friends: opt-in to meet new people from shared communities and groups.

Instagram

• Anti-bullying: features are being tested to combat bullying, and users who take comments too far will receive a “nudge”.
• Self care: an “away” feature will give distance during stressful life events, and profiles will put less emphasis on follower numbers.

AR & VR

• Portal expands: coming to Canada and Europe this year, Portal will add WhatsApp, encrypted calls, and the ability to call any friend who uses WhatsApp or Messenger.
• Watch and play: multiplayer AR games, Instant Games, Storytime app, Amazon Prime and Facebook Live are all coming to Portal.
• Spark AR expands: over one billion people have used experiences powered by Spark AR in the past year. The new Spark AR Studio now supports Windows and Mac and includes new features and functionality – “immersive ways to feel connected.”
• Oculus for Business: a suite of tools to help companies reshape the way they do business through VR will be launched later this year. Also, the two newest virtual reality headsets, Oculus Quest and Oculus Rift S, ship May 21 (you can preorder them now).

Going higher with more tips for effective real estate ads from Aitarget, Facebook, JagaJam and Donstroy.

Fourth floor: short and sweet

Mobile made the world turn faster, so a simple image of a house will no longer engage users. You need a new type of content that demonstrates advantages in a few moments.

Don’t focus on a long text description in your ads, instead highlight one or two advantages that are important for your target audience (e.g. five minutes from public transport, the historic centre, or schools and playgrounds, or favourable mortgage conditions).

Put this core message on a creative optimised for mobile and don’t forget to brand it. Such advertising will stay in users’ memory and increases conversions, including delayed ones.

We recommend that Video for News Feeds and Stories be less than 15 seconds long. The most effective videos are three to five seconds in length. Use the built-in Facebook tool for creating slideshows to make these kinds of videos from any images and short text. Longer videos may be appropriate in other placements, such as In-Stream Video.

A sample of the video ad created with Video Creation Kit

To catch the attention of users who scroll their news feed swiftly and show longer videos to those who are ready to watch them, Daria Vladimirova of Aitarget recommends using the auto placements along with the creatives adaptation.

“Facebook allows you to cover all available platforms in one ad and at the same time add standalone creatives for each,” said Vladimirova. “Selecting ‘auto’ and uploading, for example, a square three-second video for Instagram, vertical 15-second slideshow for Stories, and a 90-second video for In-Stream, you allow Facebook algorithms to choose where and in which form ads will perform, maximising the conversion possibility. This brings greater coverage, makes budget spend more efficient, and provides optimal cost per result.”

Fifth: interior decoration

“Your posts shouldn’t be true to type,” she said. “Take photos of the building from different angles, non-standard perspectives, so the content will not pass unnoticed in the news feed. Imagine what a person sees when they dream about their future flat and show it. Offering an empty apartment is inefficient. Show an apartment in which they may want to live.”

Alexander Sushchenko, Head of SMM at Donstroy, gave examples of the company’s practices which brought good results. He recommends showing on video a wide panorama of the location, then going into details. If the environment is not attractive, it is still necessary to remain relevant and show ads in real time, working on the shooting angle.

For flats to sell undecorated, the “before/after” format is suitable, where empty walls turn into an attractive interior. For ready-made accommodations give a video tour of the rooms.

“It is important to approach video production for social networks as responsibly as possible and combine a helicopter shooting (air) with infrastructure details of the property on the ground and with interiors, public spaces, and details of future apartments design,” said Sushchenko. “The goal of your video is to answer all (or almost all) customer questions and interest them in the property to prompt further interaction.”

Sixth floor: lead the way

Beware auto-filling lead forms. While lead forms that auto-fill based on a user’s Facebook profile is an option that will save users’ time, it can add half-hearted people to your CRM.

“To improve the quality of your leads, add an extra question to the lead form where answers are entered manually, and/or turn on the ‘Higher Intent’ setting – a window to confirm sending the data while filling out the form in mobile Facebook news feed,” said Daria Vladimirova.

You could ask, for example, whether the user is looking for a decorated or undecorated flat, how many rooms and which district they need, or to sign up for a visit to your sales office.

In addition to the button driving users to your website, a lead form can end by allowing the user to download a file (e.g. a layout, special offer, or other content), or the “Call me” button.

Consent given to have a phone conversation will fade quickly even for interested users, so try to respond quickly and contact potential clients within 20 minutes of them filling in a lead form. Integrate lead generation with any CRM and utilise instant callback services.

The penthouse view

In order to optimise, Facebook has to show your ads to a certain number of people. If your ad budget is too low, your ad will not get enough impressions or audience and Facebook algorithms may consider your ad ineffective and remove it from the auction.

To avoid this, your minimum budget for advertising a new building should be about $125. It is even better to budget for $150–310 per day. At the same time, you can get 2–7 times lower cost per lead compared to other platforms, and 4-5 times higher conversions.

So there you have it: a grand tour of Facebook ads for real estate, taking in every level from Facebook Pixel settings and format choice to testing and optimisations.

So did you find a great new place?

Tips for effective real estate ads from Aitarget, Facebook, JagaJam, and Donstroy.

The article was first published on Medium.

In the middle of the March a trio of social media experts held a closed business breakfast in Moscow for digital advertising professionals from real estate firms. Aitarget teamed up with Facebook and JagaJam, as well as real estate developer Donstroy, to share ideas and exchange best practices in social media advertising.

At the business breakfast we discussed formats, creatives, targeting settings, and gave attendees recommendations on how to drive audience attention with developers’ offers on Facebook and Instagram. Our Aitarget team has collected the highlights from the meeting to help you better deliver conversions and purchases through online real estate ads.

We’re moving up in the world, so get in the lift with us. Stand clear, mind the closing doors!

Ground floor: mobile

Yulia Kolesnichenko, Agency Manager for Central and Eastern Europe at Facebook, reminded everyone that the mobile format is a trendsetter for real estate advertising. People do not use aggregators, and ads in newspapers are not as influential as they used to be. Most often people will search for accommodation using a mobile phone. And this trend will keep growing. Within the ten seconds you spent reading this paragraph, about 70 new users around the world started using a smartphone.

Kolesnichenko pointed out that a mobile is the most effective selling tool for developers today, because the mobile and the audience are united. At Aitarget we noticed that about 98% of real estate advertisers’ budget was spent for mobile devices, and that mobile brings to developers up to 99% of leads.

First floor: warehouse

First things first: install a Facebook Pixel on your website to track user actions and optimise.

Choose those Pixel events that fit real estate the most. For example, Search event is suitable for apartment selection and filtering by parameters, while ViewContent shows which exact page was viewed. Lead or Contact are the core events for the “Leave a request” and “Call back” buttons.

If you plan to launch dynamic ads, you need to set several events on one button. Also, there are some must-have events to make your dynamic ads work. For general catalogue use ViewContent, AddToCart, and Purchase, and for special real estate catalogue – Search, ViewContent, InitiateCheckout, and Purchase.

This scheme may suit most developers, but everything depends on your website structure and the options that are available for users

Second floor: targeting

Across its family of platforms, Facebook’s targeting system enables real estate businesses to find suitable customers by family status, income, location in a specific are, and other characteristics that may determine their interest in properties of a certain type (e.g. two-bedroom apartments close to the underground or penthouses with parking).

Yulia Kolesnichenko highlighted the need to take care of people: find those who are interested and suggest to them the type of housing that suits them. If a person looks at a complex that they cannot afford, show them another one with targeted advertising.

The most effective targeting settings for real estate are:

• narrowing a broad audience by interests, locations, demographics, and behaviour;
• using your already available leads, as your clients may become interested in accommodation again (remember that you can look for long-term clients);
• creating Lookalike audiences from your existing customers.

Third floor: first, be dynamic

Aitarget and Facebook both advised that, first and foremost, the breakfast attendees should pay attention to dynamic ads for real estate.With Dynamic Ads, if a user was searching for a single-room apartment on the 20th floor, the algorithm would select an appropriate choice from your catalogue and show it in the ad.

Yulia Kolesnichenko noted that Facebook’s specific dynamic ads for real estate allow businesses to show the layout, location, and type of apartments based on audience needs, so users will be more inclined to leave their contacts.

To set up the dynamic ads, you need a catalogue of your offers in the data feed format supported by Facebook ads. You should include apartments with different layouts, residential projects of different levels, and with various heights and other parameters.

Source: PIK Group, Facebook Success Stories

Daria Vladimirova, Lead Agency Manager at Aitarget, suggested brands adopt two types of dynamic ads: using a specific real estate catalogue, and a general one.

“A special real estate catalogue maximises the relevance of an ad for the users when they are already interested in your offer and are potentially ready to leave their contacts,” said Vladimirova. “With the regular product catalogue, you can increase conversions at earlier stages of the sales funnel. It enables you to use the Collection and Instant Experience formats, providing the audience with more information about your project.”

In Collection, the main creative (photo or video) aligns, for example, with the apartment layouts and brief descriptions that lead to the corresponding page of a website.

A sample of the Collection ad

Instant Experience is a mini landing page within your ad, where you can add images or videos, text blocks and buttons, and layouts pulled up from the catalogue. Finalise it with a lead form.